Black Holes and Higher Composition Laws

Abstract

We describe various relations between Bhargava's higher composition laws, which generalise Gauss's original composition law on integral binary quadratic forms, and extremal black hole solutions appearing in string/M-theory and related models. The cornerstone of these correspondences is the identification of the charge cube of the STU black hole with Bhargava's cube of integers, which underpins the related higher composition laws.